ILOILO City – “I’m very frank. I do not understand what they mean.”
That was Mayor Jerry Treñas expressing bewilderment over the Department of Health (DOH) Region 6’s classification of Western Visayas’ coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) community transmission as “low level”.
“If we have low grade transmission, perhaps Manila has high grade and Cebu has a passing grade,” said Treñas.
He pointed out suspected COVID-19 community transmission cases at St. Paul’s Hospital of Iloilo (11 persons) and Alimodian, Iloilo (13 persons).
“I really do not know. DOH is a partner but sometimes, like a wife, it is very difficult to understand,” said Treñas.
But just to be safe, said the mayor, people should continuously wear facemask, observe physical distancing and wash hands with soap and water.
“Whatever the level of community transmission, we should always take care of ourselves,” stressed Treñas.
DOH EXPLAINS
In a statement, DOH Region 6 explained what low level community transmission meant in the context of Western Visayas’ COVID-19 cases.
It cited the World Health Organization’s definition of the term: “Community transmission is evidenced by the inability to relate confirmed cases through chains of transmission for a large number of cases, or by increasing positive tests through sentinel samples.”
It further invoked the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “signals” of community transmission such as the detection of confirmed cases of COVID-19 with no epidemiologic link to known cases.
DOH-6’s classification of Western Visayas’ COVID-19 community transmission as “low”, according to Regional Director Marlyn Convocar, was based on the following:
* average of 14 confirmed cases per day for the past 14 days comprising mostly of returning overseas Filipinos and locally stranded individuals
* doubling time of 12.4 days which is still within the 7-30 days for the number of positive cases to double
* critical care utilization is still within at the safe zone at 24.4 percent
* limited number of clustering of cases not interlinked or related to each other
* low mortality rate at 2.8 percent
To prevent the further spread of COVID-19, said Convovar, people should observe respiratory and cough etiquette aside from hand hygiene, wearing of facemask and observing physical distancing.
DOH-6 also urged local government units to intensify contact tracing and disease surveillance, targeted confirmatory testing for prioritized groups, isolation and quarantine of confirmed COVID-19 cases as well as persons coming from highly endemic areas such as returning overseas Filipinos, locally stranded individuals and authorized persons outside residence.
For his part, DOH-6 epidemiologist Dr. Glen Alonsabe said the low level of COVID-19 community transmission should not make the public complacent.
“Dapat magkooperar ang tanan para indi kita makaabot sa sitwasyon nga very high and very fast ang ila community transmission,” he said./PN
